PEMBROKESHIRE women joining the national campaign fighting against unfair changes to their pensions met in Haverfordwest at the weekend.

Pembrokeshire WASPI was joined by Labour MP for Swansea East and chairman of the Westminster All Party Parliamentary Group for Pension Inequality Carolyn Harris.

Other speakers at the well-attended event included WASPI co-ordinators from across Wales, Jocelyn Morgan, Dilys Jouvenant and Kay Ann Clarke, along with Joyce Watson AM.

Local organiser Jackie Gilderdale said: “The 1995 Conservative Government’s State Pension Act included plans to increase women’s state pension age from 60 to 65 so that it was the same as men’s. WASPI agrees with equalisation, but does not agree with the unfair way the changes were implemented.

“Because of the way the increases were brought in, hundreds of thousands of women born in the 1950s (on or after 6th April 1951) have been hit particularly hard. We are angry that we have been treated unfairly and unequally just because of the day we were born.

“Significant changes to the age we receive our state pension have been imposed upon us with a lack of appropriate notification, with little or no notice and much faster than we were promised – some of us have been hit by more than one increase.”

Also attending the event at the Picton Centre was County Councillor Tom Tudor who recently presented a notice of motion to Cabinet calling on Pembrokeshire County Council to write to the Government in support of the women affected.

He told Cabinet that 3,800 women in Preseli Pembrokeshire had been affected by the changes and faced living in financial hardship.

Councillors voted against the proposal saying it was an issue they could have no impact on.

Cllr Tudor said: “I was disappointed that the Cabinet on Pembrokeshire County Council rejected my NOM, but was very pleased with those on the cabinet who did support it. I was also pleased that Cabinet member Cllr David Lloyd who abstained on voting did in fact come to meet the representatives of the women from Pembrokeshire who have been affected and I am hopefully Cllr Lloyd will go back to cabinet so that they can rethink their position and support this cause before Carolyn Harris MP’s Bill is read on this for the second time in the House of Commons on the 27th April 2018.

“As I said this isn’t a party political issue. It’s a fairness and justice issue. Supporting this motion will not commit Pembrokeshire County Council to any financial or legal liability. It would simply require them to write to the Government, as they have done so in the past on many other issues.”